


Ties That Bind

by MelindaTheCavalryMay



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, hints of friendship, not exactly friendship or romance, sort of angst, tough to explain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-14
Updated: 2015-10-14
Packaged: 2018-04-26 08:46:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4998322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MelindaTheCavalryMay/pseuds/MelindaTheCavalryMay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on the prompt by anon on Tumblr. "Could you do a little fic with first time Melinda helps Phil with his tie, once she returns." </p><p>Phil is struggling with his tie and May helps. Things seem like the old days, well almost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ties That Bind

**Author's Note:**

> Don't own Marvel or AoS. If I did Philinda would've been canon by now.

Phil Coulson had always preferred to dress well. He had been that way since he had joined SHIELD. Suit, Tie, well polished shoes, a handkerchief in his pocket; everything had to be there before he’d leave for work. Unless any mission required him to dress in a different manner, he’d always chosen this attire. ‘Office Man’ as Hill used to tease him and he didn’t mind, his attire was a part of him, with time it had become a way to describe him, it defined him, it completed him. 

Now when he thought of it, considering how much things had changed in the recent times, how much he had changed in the recent times, not wearing a suit and tie simply added to lot of things that made him feel incomplete. 

Today however, he had an important meeting. Rosalind had arranged for a meeting with some high ranking government officials to talk about the Inhumans situation and his presence there was necessary. He had to convince as many people as he could that the Inhumans could be handled in a better way than simply taking them down. Not an easy task but it needed to be done. This meeting however required him to dress up in his suit and tie. He couldn’t go there in the more casual attire that he had been wearing recently. Sky..Daisy had said that the new getup made him look pretty badass but for him it was a major change, another one of many. 

As he looked through his ties in the cupboard choosing which one would look better, he realised that he had somehow missed doing this. It wasn’t something huge but every day he had spent a few minutes rummaging through his cupboard, looking for the perfect tie, making sure his shoes were well polished, 10 minutes of the day for him. It’s not that he couldn’t wear his suit and tie anymore but he was still adjusting to his new hand, it could handle simple tasks but he was yet to perfect the art of tying a necktie. He had given it a few failed attempts and decides to take a break. Once he’d get more used to his new hand, he’d give it a shot. 

There were many people on the base who could help him with this but he wasn’t prepared to ask help with what he'd considered to be such a menial task. It was supposed to have been something he was quite well acquainted with and so he didn’t like asking help from anyone. At the same time it also felt a bit personal, his attire was in some weird sort of way, a part of him, to ask help from someone who didn’t know him that well felt like acknowledging the fact that he was indeed struggling with getting himself back together. He wasn’t ready to share that feeling with anyone, not yet. There was however one person who he wouldn’t have minded asking but currently their relationship was more distant than one between two complete strangers would be. 

Melinda May had known him better than anyone, at times he had felt she knew him better than himself. Since the academy days they had been together, she knew him, understood him, believed in him when even he doubted himself. If things hadn’t turned this sour between them she would be the first person he’d go and talk to, not just about his struggle with his new hand or this tie trouble but also how tough he was finding to rebuild things around. To be frank he wouldn’t have even needed to say a word, she’d understand by just looking at him sadly what he did was to go and screw up the most genuine relationship he had. He had kept so many secrets from his best friend that he ended up pushing her away, and she had left. He lost his right hand too. 

“The red one with the diagonal stripes looks good” 

It was when he heard the voice of the person occupying his mind that he broke from his trance. He was so deep in thought that he hadn’t realised that someone had come up to his room and was standing near the doorway. Not ‘someone’ but May, his best friend, his right hand. Though he doubted whether she still wanted to be that to him. 

“May!” He looked at her, eyes wide with surprise. 

“Sky—Daisy told me you’re in your office but I couldn’t find you there, so I thought ..” she paused and then said “I’ll come back later” saying this she turned around to leave but halted when she heard his voice. 

“I have trouble with the new name too” 

She looked at him confused, so he clarified “she still is Skye to me, the girl we picked up from that van, I’m not used to calling her Daisy” 

She walked into his room and stood a few feet away from his arms crossed. 

“Yeah, she’s changed, she’s more responsible now, it was good to see her” Melinda added. 

Coulson nodded and turned to around back to his cupboard to take out the tie that May had suggested. He wondered if she remembered or not but this tie was a gift from May, well more like ‘she had bought it as a replacement for the one he had used to tie around her arm when a shrapnel had pierced it during one mission and she was bleeding profusely’. He chuckled a bit at the thought, there was another reason his ties meant a great deal to him, some had memories tied with them, mostly it included tying up a criminal when they couldn’t find a rope and were awaiting extraction or using them to stop blood flow but they were memories, memories of the days when he was still an agent, not the director of this agency he was struggling to rebuild. 

“What happened?” she asked when she saw him chuckling. He looked up at May, another key part of the memories he was talking about. 

“Nothing” he said shaking his head. He didn’t know where they currently were. If they still had a relationship that allowed them the comfort to talk about nostalgia. “It’s good to see you back” he added then paused before asking “you are back right?” he knew that she’d detect the uncertainty in his voice but he couldn’t help but ask. 

She didn’t reply for a while and he started on tying his neck tie. As soon as he began he knew it was going to be a struggle, but he had the time, especially if that time involved being able to talk with May again. 

“Hunter was a bit injured in his quest to take down Ward, he didn’t want to worry Bobbi by calling and asking for help in returning back to the base, so I decided to drop him.” she said. 

“Oh..” he wouldn’t be lying if he said that he wasn’t disappointed. He was excited to think May was back, the team needed her and so did he. If having her back on the base meant that they would stick to being 2 teammates rather than the old friends they were, he was fine with that too. 

“Yeah ..” she said pursing her lips. 

“So you’re not ..” he began but was cut off by May “No. I’m not back” she walked up to him, quite close and he wondered why. When she raised her hand to rest it on his, he realised why, in his yet another failed attempt at tying his neck tie, he had ended up tying it in a messy knot. Yet another disappointment added to his list. 

She eased the fake hand that had gripped the tie tightly and slowly removed it. She ran her thumb at the back of his new hand before leaving it in the air. To be frank he knew that this new hand didn’t exactly feel anything, touch or pain but when she had held it and when she had rubbed her thumb over it, he could swear that he had felt it. 

She brought up her hand again and loosened the tie. 

“Not yet anyways” she added softly. Even though it wasn’t much of an assurance, the fact that she had said she wasn’t back ‘yet’ gave him some sort of hope. A tiny glimmer of hope that this would be temporary and she would be back. The fact that she had come to meet him while she could’ve just dropped Hunter at the medical lab and left, was enough to give him some sort of an assurance that the day she’d return wasn’t far. She was Melinda May; she couldn’t stay away from SHIELD forever. 

“Ok” he replied. Without stressing further and asking her when. He knew she’d return when she felt it was right. He understood her reasons to leave. It was a want to find some sort of normalcy in their lives. He had been through that as well, he still did. When he had come back from the dead and Fury had offered him a chance at retirement, he did contemplate the idea but then things with people like them, who gave almost everything to this organisation, to saving the world from the bad guys, being able to have a drink with the team at the end of the day, or maybe early morning exercise or Tai-Chi would be as normal as it could get. 

“Hunter needs to realise that the mission is getting way too personal for him” she said as she continued to help him with his tie. 

“I don’t blame him”. Ward had tried to injure one of his people, he was as angry as Hunter was, that was the reason he had let Hunter go on this mission when he asked.

“I know but ..” she paused looked up at him and said “you know how it is Phil, entangling emotions with the mission will only make him more vulnerable, people like Ward, they play on the sentiments and emotions of their targets” 

“Yeah, I know. I’ll talk to him. How’s your dad by the way?” He wasn’t sure if he should ask this, they weren’t exactly on the level of talking about personal stuff yet, but he wanted to know, he had met William May quite a few times and had liked him. May adored her father and her father had enjoyed having Phil around when he had visited their home once during a vacation with May. 

“He’s .. he’s fine, recovery takes time” she said as she removed her hands from him after finishing with tying his tie. She rubbed her palm across it for a moment and pulled her hand back. It felt like a familiar gesture, felt normal. 

“Yeah it does” Phil said glancing at his fake hand. He looked up at May who was looking at him, a sad smile on her face. 

“How ..” she began but he cut her off knowing what she was going to ask. 

“Getting used to it, 3rd one already” he said lifting the new hand. 

She nodded and moved back. 

“I wanted to see Jemma before I leave” she said.  
She had just come back and was already talking about leaving. To be honest Phil didn’t want her to leave, he wanted her to stay back, and he wanted to talk to her, ask her about her vacation, about what she thought of his new plans for SHIELD. He wanted to talk to her but knew that he couldn’t force her to stay; he didn’t deserve to even ask her that, especially after everything he put her through. 

“Oh! She should be in her room, I can ask Fitz to take you there, but most probably he’d be with her right now” He said with a small smile. Fitz hadn’t left Jemma ever since she came back. Fitz and Jemma, a team. They worked together just the way he and May did or used to do. 

She smiled back and said “Yeah, I hadn’t expected anything else, don’t worry I’ll look for her, I’m sure Skye is waiting just outside the office waiting for me. She’ll take me to Jemma” 

He chuckled and she looked back at him confused. 

“You called her Skye again” he explained with a shrug and added “Don’t worry, I see her everyday and still end up calling her Skye most of the time” 

She smiled. She walked up to him once again and adjusted the knot once. She knew he liked his ties perfect. She knew what he liked and disliked. 

“I .. uh .. I’ll call you later” she said looking up at him. 

He found hope in that, hope that this time she’d call from her number than a payphone, or even if she did call him from a payphone their talks won’t be just about the team or include one line answers. He had hope that they’d actually talk, because he was sure that May had realised he was struggling, that he wouldn’t confide in anyone else. So as she always did, she was telling him in her own way that she would be there to listen. That mattered more than anything. They might take a lot of time to repair what they had, but they would get there. 

As she turned around and walked towards the exit, maybe it was the part of him that wasn’t ready to see her leave and that feared that she wouldn’t return, maybe he’d just wake up to realise this is all a dream, he couldn’t help but ask in order to assure himself that she would come back, a part of him was selfish and needed to know she would return. 

“May, you will ..” he began asking when she turned around and stopped him.

“Soon” is all she said and left. He knew that she knew what he would ask; he had no doubt about that. No matter how damaged their relationship was, they still understood each other better than anyone. She’d come back, this gave him hope to look towards the future. She’d be back, even if was just as a member of his team. She’d be back and that’s all that mattered to him.


End file.
